A recent piece in the Washington Post offers that up to a third of Americans living in the United States are willing to report to a survey taker that they either support or are indifferent to political violence (archived). As a point of contrast Muslims compose only 0.9% of the United States population. The piece's author Nathan Kalmoe mentions that maybe some people are politically disaffected, but spins the narrative that the likely driver for these results in his estimation is political rhetoric. Unmentioned was the materially declining quality of life in the United States driving political disaffection or the historical role political violence had in establishing the United States.

On the same day the Washington Post also published a piece in their "Monkey Cage" blog¹ about how large national government donors to Africa in times of political instability default to pushing the countries receiving donations to hold elections as rapidly as possible without any regard for addressing or resolving the underlying disputes (archived). In this case author Haley Swedlund lamented that quick elections may not be the most effective way of promoting "democratization" in Africa. Unmentioned is what these governments donating would consider an undesirable outcome. Perhaps the least desirable outcome for these state donors is that in the absence of a strong central government, people continue getting by. Worse for the donors, they might even discover they prefer an absentee central government that doesn't centrally plan famine.

There is an outright refusal for commentators in the mainstream press to take information they find and do anything other than twist it to the politically "polite" narrative. That deep disappointment in the American political process might lead a United States citizen to not reflexively condemn political violence is unmentionable as the central thesis of a narrative in the Washington Post. In the Washington Post the political rhetoric must be to blame, even though it also spawns out of deep disappointment in the political process. In a United States where bankruptcy artist and general idiot Donald Trump leads polls because of the still more disappointing alternatives, isn't the sane conclusion that the rhetoric manifests as just another symptom and not the cause of the deep illness afflicting the United States?

1. Yes, the liberal Washington Post put a piece about Africa in the "Monkey Cage"  ↩